Diamine Inkvent 2024: Day 11 — Grotto
Day 11!
Hello again! For day eleven of Diamine Inkvent, we have Grotto.
The color/properties:
Diamine calls this new ink “Extreme Sheen.” The base color is a deep, medium orange, and the pooled areas of the ink dry into a bright green/golden sheen. There is some shading as well, with a crisp cut between the base orange and a darker, near-brown tone where the ink pools.
*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.
Rhodia
Leuchtturm
How did it perform?
Grotto has a medium flow and performed better than expected for a high-sheening ink. It had a slightly sandy feel to it with the fine nib, but was much smoother, and certainly comfortable enough with the medium and broad nibs. With that said it does dry out fast in the nib if you stop often while writing, and even capped you might have to get the pen started again. Because of that, the experience was much better in cursive than print because of all the light hard starting I would get from lifting the pen during print writing.
There’s also the matter of cleaning, because an ink like this immediately had me worried about stains, and of course, there was a light red hue staining the barrel of my Diamond 580 test pen after it was cleaned out. This was removed with the use of Rapido-Eze technical pen cleaner, but it was a long process that of course, required the disassembly of the pen as well. I would keep this ink away from any kind of demonstrator or lightly colored pens that might be prone to staining. Due to its high concentration, it’s not the quickest ink to clean out either. It required multiple soaks and flushes to get out, so I’d recommend pens with easily soakable nib units/sections if the material allows it.
Ink splat
Ink droplets
My personal thoughts…
Well, here it is! A new type of ink for this year’s Inkvent calendar! Extreme Sheen. Now that’s a name to live up to, and at first, I wasn’t sure that it was going to. In fact, there was a lot of confusion on my part because when I swatched it, it didn’t look all that sheeny. Actually, it didn’t even look as sheeny in the swatch as Cranberry from day 6, and that didn’t even fall under “Sheen.” All of that confusion went away quickly as soon as I had it in a pen, because goodness, it really is sheeny. Impressively so. I might even write home about it, but let’s talk about the name for a moment: “Grotto.” I’ll admit that I’m not sure what that could be referring to outside of a general festive space that’s been adorned with holiday lights and decorations for ye olde winter celebration and holiday brouhaha, and the color doesn’t point me in any specific direction either. But at the same time, it’s still the kind of crazy out-of-the-norm ink that I look for in an Inkvent calendar, and I don’t often see sheening orange inks. This is an easy recommendation from me.
Written in a Leuchtturm1917 notebook
More Images/Info:
Tools and materials used in the writing samples:
A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 3 nib units including a Fine, Medium, and Broad. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same wetness.
A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad
A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook